Quinoa Tabbouli and a Nearly Instant Mezze Platter

I love the kind of meal that feels festive even though it centers on one simple dish, with a few tasty readymade accompaniments. Case in point is this nearly instant mezze (aka Middle Eastern, aka Mediterranean) platter centered around an easy quinoa tabbouli.

I’ve kept the platter shown here simple with fresh pita bread, olives, rice-stuffed grape leaves, and hummus (choose from your favorite prepared hummus brand or any of the thousands of easy hummus recipes across the web).

For a larger meal, if you’re feeling a bit more ambitious, you can make falafel balls from a mix. Must-haves for this kind of platter, in my humble opinion, are olives, pita, and hummus.

Vary this tasty Middle-Eastern themed meal each time you make it with different ingredients from the supermarket olive bar. Marinated artichokes, roasted red bell peppers, and/or pickled vegetables are great choices. You can add fresh raw veggies like carrot and/or celery sticks as well, if you’d like.

If you plan this meal out by cooking the quinoa ahead of time and picking up the rest of the accompaniments on the way home from work, you won’t believe how quickly this meal comes together!

The simple, standard tabbouli recipe gets a couple of twists. Bulgur (pre-steamed cracked wheat) is the grain traditionally used, but quinoa makes it fluffier and lighter, not to mention even higher in protein. It’s gluten free, too. However, feel free to try this with bulgur to return to this recipe’s roots, for a change of pace. Couscous works well, too. Recipe adapted fromPlant Power by Nava Atlas.